'Pain make man think. Thought make man wise. Wisdom make life endurable' : Sakini, in "The Tea House of the August Moon" by John Patrick, (1953)

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Victoria Lomasko: the brutally funny artist no gallery in Russia will touch. By Viv Groskop

Victoria Lomasko
documents the side of Russian life the authorities would rather no one noticed.
In one typical black and white drawing, a sex worker takes a drag on her
cigarette and says: “Some clients ask us to piss on them. But I’d be happy to
shit on them, on behalf of all women.” At first, Lomasko drew
for herself and her friends. Now, her work is internationally acclaimed. Her
first book, Forbidden Art, written with Anton Nikolaev, won Russia’s prestigious
Kandinsky prize, but she has only really become known abroad since the
publication last year of Other
Russias. It’s a brutal, darkly funny collection of drawings of sex workers
in Nizhny Novgorod, slaves in Moscow, schoolchildren in desolate villages, as
well as LGBT
activistsand ultra-nationalists. When she toured the US last year, the
New Yorker described her as “listening to ordinary Russians by drawing
them one by one”, from God-fearing old ladies to young skinheads and striking
truckers.

Lomasko has just flown
in from Moscow for a series of events at London’s Pushkin House, including the
installation of an exhibition called On the Eve, a reference to what she calls
“massive changes to come” and a nod to Ivan Turgenev’s novel of the same name
(she also jokes about the country being “on
the eve of Putin’s re-election”). It will feature drawings from Other
Russias and a new purpose-built mural, as well as work never before seen
outside Russia – and some never seen inside Russia either. Her work is not
officially censored at home, she explains, although it might as well be. “It’s
the same as in the Soviet period,” she says. “You don’t get arrested or
interrogated. Just no curators or gallery owners want to work with you. It is
like a little death of sorts, for any artist. My work does come out in Russia, but only on alternative
websites that have a liberal audience in St Petersburg or Moscow. Anything more
serious or more mainstream, it’s not possible.” Before the elections in 2012,
things were easier, she adds. Since then, she feels the difference.

While Lomasko likes to
look at the big picture, she is equally interested in everyday concerns, one
current obsession being the housing
situation in Moscow, in particular the 4,500 apartment buildings (including
hers) that are earmarked for demolition, with plans to relocate up to 1.6
million residents. “They want to move people to worse areas, places with no
infrastructure,” she sighs. “It’s internal deportation. And the residents are
supposed to argue it out among themselves. Who’s for, who’s against. It’s a
miniature civil war.”

Although she now lives
in Moscow, she identifies strongly with Russians from outside the capital. “I
was born in Serpukhov, a town 100km south of Moscow. I didn’t know anything
about modern art or cinema. Everything just passed us by. The most important
thing was who was getting married and when.” It’s clear from her expression
that this was unimportant to her. Now 39, she enjoys the freedom of being
single and child-free, taking long trips across the former Soviet Union. Her
latest took her to the predominantly Islamic parts of Dagestan, to document
women’s attitudes towards religion… read more: